Make Your PC Work Better

Speed Up Windows

Tidy Up Your Temp Folder
Clean up the temporary files in your C:\Windows\Temp folder that waste space and may slow start-up. Add the line

del C:\Windows\Temp\*.tmp > nul

to your Autoexec.bat file to clean up this file every time you start your computer. If you're running Windows 98, you can run the System Configuration Utility, click on the Autoexec.bat file and on New (if you don't already have an Autoexec) or Edit (if you have this file), add the line, and then enable it. In Windows 95, you can typically find the Autoexec.bat file in the root directory of your C: drive. Open it in Windows Notepad and make the changes there.

Clean Up Your System Tray
Have you noticed that your taskbar clock has a lot more company lately? That area is called the System Tray, and programs can tell Windows to load an icon there to give you status information and let you right- or left-click to perform operations. This is a handy thing, but it can be done to excess, and too many programs are loading at start-up and slowing down your system.

Sometimes the program provides a friendly way to clean up the System Tray. Right-click on the program's tray icon to see whenter you have the option of turning it off. If all you want to do is clean the icons out of your System Tray (while still having the programs load).

If you're running Windows 95:
Go to the Windows\Start Menu\Programs\ Startup folder in Windows Explorer. You can add or remove programs here for start-up.

If you're running Windows 98:
Go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Information. Then select Tools > System Configuration from the Menu. From that dialog box, click on the Startup tab. Now you can deselect those programs you want to load at start-up.

If your program wasn't in the StartUp folder, check the Registry. Go to Start > Run and type regedit. Go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion section. Look for the Run key, which contains a number of strings-programs Windows loads. You can delete keys at your discretion.

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